Saturday, December 17, 2016

Note: This post will be updated regularly throughout the day. Check back early and often to get your fill of spooky stories!

The periodic purges have begun, jackboots tromping through the frosty night. No one knows how they began, what petty bureaucratic infringement sparked the settling of old scores, the creation of new ones. We’ve killed the lights for safety’s sake, because who would think this old hovel with its icy stove and chinked walls and cracked windows was inhabited? A hoarded blanket flung over the scarred table in the dining room serves as our shelter, and we huddle beneath it for warmth, lifting a corner now and then to peer out at the fissured glass, at the roving lights striking white against shifting sheets of snow. But then the howling starts, bellows of fear and pain and something that could almost be called delight. We shiver as one. It has nothing to do with the cold. We let the blanket drop, knowing that no human throat could’ve made some of those sounds, knowing that we won’t dare to raise it again until the sun stands tall in the sky, knowing that there are things worse than the secret police out in the darkness.

We stare at the blanket's patchwork surface. Tough, undyed homespun. A section of chiffon. A swath of powder-blue cloth printed with puppies. A match flares, finds the precious stub of a candle. A trembling hand passes around a flask. A low voice starts to sing about bells wild and sweet, catches on a soft sob, and stops.

Please, dear friend, come here. Warm your hands, recall the old songs, pass the night with us. And while you're here, don’t forget to tell us a story ...

("Into The Void" copyright 2016 by William Gregory; used by permission)

* * *

"I-Bowndyn"
By David Llewellyn Dodds

Darkness, confusion, buried alive, like a well, a building-collapse. Light, sound, voice, crashing into head, heart, so fine, clear, certain – all suddenly gone, what long years ago? Borne, patiently, hope carbonized to diamond in the dark. Now, what rumor (how?) stirring, of excavation – of more than restoration? What glint, in the depths, sheltered roundabout? What surge from root to branch to bud? “Yirmiyahu, – ” “O, Yeshayahu, what a city of grey desolation is this, we’ve not escaped the making of: how the sorrow weighs against hope…” “No!: hear that submerged ghostly breath of joy in the womb, ‘Eloi!’ – He nears!”

("I-Bowndyn" copyright 2016 by David Llewellyn Dodds; used by permission)

David, have you ever read Colin Cutler's The Ward of Heaven and the Wyrm in the Sea? I'll admit that I haven't had the pleasure yet, but from what I understand, Cutler takes familiar Christian concepts and remythologizes them -- much like you've done here. Nicely written.